PETALING JAYA: A story of indiscretion that has become all too familiar. On June 11, a video clip depicting two men having an intimate moment in bed hit cyberspace.
PKR deputy president Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali was alleged to be one of them.
The rumour mill had it that this was an inside job, marshalled by party vice-president Rafizi Ramli, with the backing of president Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, to bring Azmin down.
Of course nothing has been proven yet – neither Azmin’s alleged folly nor Rafizi’s supposed underhand tactic, nor even Anwar’s said tacit approval. The only sure thing is that a PKR youth leader Haziq Abdullah Abdul Aziz has confessed that he is one of the two men.
Sex has become a political weapon, and if it is shown to involve two men, it becomes deadly. Anwar was the target of such an attack once. After all, it’s one of the more effective ways to get rid of a potential rival.
In the PKR case, Rafizi certainly has a reason to do Azmin in, politically. They fought a bitter battle for the party deputy president’s post in November last year, but Rafizi failed to unseat the incumbent.
Rafizi has denied any involvement in the ploy.
Then there is the alleged fallout between Anwar and Azmin. If that is true, it would be to Anwar’s advantage to remove Azmin, who is just a heartbeat away from the party’s top job.
The stakes are high. The deal within Pakatan Harapan (PH) is that Anwar will assume the premiership when Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad decides the time has come for him to go.
As long as Azmin stays in the wings, Anwar will never feel secure. But that remains a product of the rumour mill at this point.
Anwar has categorically stated that such tactics would not be tolerated.
On the other hand if there is a head-off between the two, the damage to the party can be irreparable, never mind what it will do to the PH coalition.
For a start, popular support for PKR will likely take a beating, according to political analyst Dr Lim Teck Ghee.
“It is also the largest party in parliament now, so whatever happens in PKR will have a ripple effect across the entire political system,” Lim said.
“That will be felt greatly by the other parties in the coalition.”
The internal squabble in PKR brings to mind the political infighting that has peppered the Malaysian political system for decades. It also shows that such divisions can be detrimental to voter confidence at best and a cause for total disintegration at worst.
Take the Umno saga of 1987. Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, who had earlier lost the battle for deputy president to Tun Musa Hitam, took on Mahathir for the top party post. He lost by a mere 43 votes.
Razaleigh challenged the results of the election in court, only to see the party declared an illegal organisation.
Three years earlier, MCA saw a spat between then party president Datuk Dr Neo Yee Pan and vice-president Tan Sri Tan Koon Swan over Tan’s allegations that Neo had registered phantom members ahead of the party elections.
In the year that followed, there were smear campaigns, physical assaults and legal battles between the two sides. Tan and 13 of his supporters were even sacked from the party.
Eventually, Mahathir had to send his deputy Tun Ghafar Baba to get the two sides to reconcile.
More recently, MIC saw its then president Datuk Seri G. Palanivel and his deputy Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam at loggerheads. The crisis would go on for a year before Palanivel was given the boot and Subramaniam won the top post uncontested. PKR’s crisis is not dissimilar, save for the sex.
It is now up to Anwar to steady the boat, according to analyst Datuk Dr Zainal Kling. “He has to ensure that his party does not meet the same fate as its nemesis,” he said.
He stressed that general statements asking members to address problems internally without resorting to underhand tactics are no longer adequate.
“He has to be firm from now.”
